NCJ Number
168990
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 14 Issue: 1 Dated: (March 1997) Pages: 145-166
Date Published
1997
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This study examined the impact of religious programs on institutional adjustment and recidivism rates in two matched groups of inmates from four adult male prisons in New York State.
Abstract
In 1991 Prison Fellowship (PF), a nonprofit religious ministry to prisoners founded by former Nixon aide and Watergate figure Charles Colson, commissioned a study of PF programs. Subsequently, the researchers for the current study obtained permission from PF to re-examine the data by looking at institutional adjustment and postrelease arrests in an effort to determine whether the various types of religious programs offered by PF changed former inmates' behavior. PF participation data pertained to 201 male inmates from the four prisons who had participated in at least one of three PF activities: Bible studies, in-prison seminars, or life plan seminars. A matched group of inmates was selected by first excluding all known PF program participants from the release cohort of approximately 40,000 inmates. Findings show that PF and non-PF inmates were similar on measures of institutional adjustment, as measured by both general and serious prison infractions. They were also similar in recidivism patterns, as measured by arrests during a 1-year follow-up period; however, after controlling for level of involvement in PF-sponsored programs, inmates who were most active in Bible studies were significantly less likely to be rearrested during the follow-up period. 5 tables and 61 references